The Wrong Takeaway

By Brian Beutler

Good for Obama for owning his mistakes, but he might want to rethink why he’s doing it:

“Did I screw up in this situation? Absolutely. I’m willing to take my lumps,” Obama told NBC’s Brian Williams, one of five interviews he gave yesterday afternoon. Obama told the network anchors that there are “not two sets of rules” for people, and said that average taxpayers deserve to have public officials who pay their taxes on time.

Well, yeah, sure. But more importantly, average taxpayers deserve to have public officials who haven’t sold their souls to powerful interests, or who aren’t plagued by conflicts of interest.